Press Releases

Electronic prescriptions are now mandated in the state of New York and other states are poised to follow suit. Is your plastic surgery practice ready for e-prescribe? With many benefits to offer and mandates looming, now is the time to embrace electronic prescribing by selecting the software program that will make the process safe, efficient and easy for all appropriate members of your practice to learn and use.

Benefits of E-Prescribe

There are many potential benefits to an e-prescribe system. For the physician, benefits include:

This process can be particularly beneficial for plastic surgeons and their patients since the relationship between the two is often limited to the aesthetic procedures. Plastic surgeons get instant access to the patient’s full medication history, ensuring medications they prescribe will not cause any harmful interactions. This process is much more thorough and accurate than simply asking patients to list the medications they are currently taking from memory.

Components of E-Prescribe

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services names three basic components in the e- prescribing process:

Prescriber – Authorized members of your practice should be able to get into the eRx system with a username and password. You can also add additional identification tools to make your system even more secure. Once in the system, you should be able to review your patient’s medication history, prescribe new medication and choose the pharmacy where the prescription will be filled.

Transaction Hub – This is the link between the prescriber, the pharmacy and the pharmacy benefits manager. The hub will determine patient eligibility for the prescribed medication, based on the patient’s complete medication history, and send that information back to the prescriber.

Pharmacy – Once the pharmacy receives the prescription from the transaction hub, the prescription can be filled. Pharmacies can also set up alerts to let providers know when prescriptions are picked up, allowing for better patient care and tracking involving medications.

Why Choose RxNow?

For plastic surgeons looking to get ahead of the compliance train, PatientNOW offers e-prescription functionality with our RxNow feature. This tool is fully compliant with the federal mandates and is easy enough for everyone in your office to learn quickly. In addition to its efficiency and user-friendliness, RxNow offers superior security to keep your patients’ information safe and private. RxNow is a part of our medical practice software designed to keep your entire practice running efficiently and give you more face-to-face time with your patients.

E-prescribing may not be a mandate in your state yet, but rest assured that mandate will be coming soon. Get RxNow implemented in your practice now and you will be fully compliant before the mandate goes into effect. To learn more, contact PatientNOW at 888-644-2987.

Ransomware is making headlines and striking fear into hospitals across the globe. These computer viruses do not actually steal information from databases, but they can block access by the hospital or practice to the very data they have stored and use every day to manage and care for their patients. If you are concerned about whether a ransomware could hold your practice’s data hostage, PatientNow has a few facts about this alarming trend that you need to know.

What is Ransomware?

Ransomware is a type of computer virus that holds data “hostage” from its owner. The owner of the data must pay a stated amount of money, usually in bitcoins, to have the data released. This ransom is reportedly all the hackers are looking for, and data is returned rather than stolen completely in most cases. However, the data is compromised, and when you are a plastic surgeon with highly sensitive patient information in your database, compromise can be devastating for your practice.

The newest methods of ransomware attacks have proven much more difficult to detect than earlier ransomware viruses. In addition, more recent types of viruses are designed for maximum impact, with a goal of shutting down as much of the business as possible so the owner has no option but to pay the ransom and retrieve the information. Law enforcement is advising against paying the ransom, since there is no guarantee your data will be unlocked and ransom payments are likely to encourage other ransomware viruses to follow. However, when you are a medical provider unable to access patient information, refusing to pay a ransom is not always the easiest option.

Attacks on Hospitals

Many of the most recent ransomware attacks have been on hospitals and medical groups across the country. In February, a virus hit Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles. The attack was potent enough to force the hospital into paper and pencil mode for a large portion of the operations. The facility ended up paying the $17,000 in bitcoins as ransom to have their systems restored.

Earlier this month, Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Kentucky, faced a similar attack. In this case, the hospital was able to fend off the attack without resorting to paying ransom, by declaring an internal state of emergency and working through their limited Internet access. Eventually, the hospital was able to regain control of their systems.

Just this week, the self-proclaimed largest healthcare provider in Maryland and Washington D.C., MedStar Health, was the victim of a ransomware attack. The group, which operates 10 hospitals and 200 outpatient offices in the area, was forced to disable their network to prevent the virus from spreading. The group has no reason to believe any of its data was compromised at this time. The FBI is looking into this attack as well as some of the other attacks that have left medical providers vulnerable and unable to provide their full scope of services to their patients.

Keeping Your Practice Safe

Experts will tell you the best way to deal with a ransomware virus is to prevent it from happening in the first place. To lower your risk of an attack, you can follow these steps:

Refrain from opening any foreign email attachments or Word documents
Always keep your software up to date with the latest versions of your browser, OS and browser plug-ins
Never enable execution of macros in documents without verified senders
Perform your daily activities from a limited user account

The Importance of Secure Software

When you sign on with the secure software from PatientNow, you are also taking an important step in preventing any type of virus attack, including ransomware. Our sophisticated, state-of-the-art packages feature the best security in the business, ensuring you and your patients are safe from theft. If you would like to learn more about how PatientNow can help protect you from cyberattacks of all kinds, contact our office today at 888-644-2987.

Press Release

Greenwood Village, CO – May 12, 2015– patientNOW and New Look Now® are pleased to announce an exclusive partnership that combines the first aesthetic software designed by plastic surgeons for plastic surgeons, with the revolutionary before-and-after photo simulation tool to provide the optimal patient experience for patients and practices.Both companies are endorsed by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) having met the “gold standard” of quality and cost-effectiveness.

One of the biggest challenges for many practices is maintaining a high patient retention rate. Some practice’s patient retention methods are more successful than others’ because they have likely created a streamlined system for managing patient communications. You can make this process easier by using the patientNOW Patient Acquisition and Retention (PAR™) system at your practice. The system makes it simple to automate many marketing tasks so patient communications are seamless and effective.

You need to implement an efficient and secure system to manage medical records and generate invoices at your office. Consider going paperless when managing electronic medical records so that you have easy access to files you need at any time. Going paperless can streamline many internal operations and even improve the patient experience. Here are some of the benefits and drawbacks of going paperless with an EMR:Read more

Managing patient documents is an important part of daily operations at your aesthetic practice or medical spa. Consider going paperless with our Electronic Medical Records (EMR) solution to manage those sensitive files with ease. Digitized versions of patient documents are much easier to organize, sort, and access by authorized staff members, and will help you streamline many of the daily tasks at the office. Here are some tips for managing your practice with EMR versus traditional paper filing.

Benefits of Managing Your Practice with EMRs

If you are committed to going green, consider going paperless with EMRs. Our digital patient documents are designed to look just like paper charts and pages appear instantly as you flip through the files within the program. PatientNOW EMR comes with a fully-integrated document management system that can capture patient signatures digitally, store photos and other media files, organize scanned images, and take care of word processing tasks with ease. Our EMR barcode system eliminates the need for manual indexing and can reduce data entry errors.

Managing Paper Patient Documents

If you are running a very busy medical practice and aren’t completely paperless just yet, you may experience some issues with workflow and communication between patients and staff members. It can be difficult to manage and organize paper documents in larger facilities and keep accurate records of all patients without a digital software program. You will need to make room to store patient files in a secure location and train staff to file all paperwork without making errors.

For many medical practices and medical spas, having access to digital patient documents streamlines many internal processes and reduces the risk of errors. You can increase security of sensitive patient information with an online registration portal, eliminating the need for patients to complete paper authorization forms and other paperwork during the intake process.

Learn more about the benefits of PatientNOW EMR by contacting us today!

PatientNOW is pleased to announce the appointment of Lauren Dudek as East Coast Regional Sales Manager. Ms. Dudek will promote the complete practice management system with PAR™ (Patient Acquisition and Retention) to help aesthetic medical practices capture new patients, retain existing patients and grow their practices intelligently with recurring revenue and consequently grow practice revenue.

Ms. Dudek’s 10 years of medical marketing and practice consulting experience makes her uniquely qualified for this position. Lauren has held past sales positions with Valeant Pharmaceuticals, IF Marketing and Sears Holding Corporation.

Lauren holds a Bachelor of Science degree in International Business from Northeastern University.

New partnership helps plastic surgeons Capture more patients and Grow their Practice

PatientNOW and RealPatientRatings® (RPR) announce a new integration with both systems. RealPatientRatings® captures doctor reviews and actual ratings from real patients with a patent pending process that eliminates the fake reviews that plague practices and makes it harder for consumers to make informed choices as they use reviews to choose plastic surgeons.

The PAR – Patient Acquisition and Retention™ system in PatientNOW automatically sends links to RPR surveys. As patients respond anonymously and voluntarily, RPR collects their feedback and delivers critical insights to their surgeons. Because higher levels of patient satisfaction correlate directly to higher conversion rates at consult as well as higher retention and referral post operatively, practices can pinpoint opportunities for growth using regional and national benchmarks.

RPR’s online review strategy helps practices grow and benefit from consumer searches for doctor reviews. RPR publishes its reviews to member websites and on realpatientratings.com which is highly ranked by Google. This dual strategy enhances practice websites with review content and supports members with highly ranked and 100% accurate reviews. “Prospective patients can read reviews that they can rely on from real patients who have already visited the surgeon they are considering,” said RealPatientRatings® founder Marie Olesen. Read more

PatientNOW, the digital foundation for your aesthetic medical practice, and AnzuConnect™, a web-based HIE platform that allows physicians to securely exchange electronic medical records over the Internet for their shared patients have partnered to offer a network of referring physicians.

“PatientNOW is pleased to offer the ability for physicians to import patient medical records from other specialists within the AnzuConnect™ network”, said Jerry Jacobson, President and Co-Founder. “The integration with AnzuConnect™ will reduce patient costs and improve the quality of care by eliminating duplicate lab tests, prescriptions and even some examinations.” Read more